For Foreign Correspondent, experience with quick thinking matched well with slowing life Weâre sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss Save Normal text size Advertisement Matthew Carney was the ABCâs China bureau chief before fleeing in 2018. Now the executive producer of Foreign Correspondent, he reflects on the unique challenges posed by travel restrictions and the pandemic. The pandemic made things tough for everyone, but for a show called Foreign Correspondent it mustâve been uniquely difficult. I remember when the pandemic hit, and being dumbfounded â with the âforeignâ in Foreign Correspondent we were hit first and hardest, and just sitting there for a couple of weeks going, âI canât see how we can do it.â But necessity is the mother of invention and very quickly we just had to regroup, think out of the box and just really go for it, which we did. And itâs come up with really good results â audiences are really engaged, they want to see longform current affairs, weâve had the best year weâve had in terms of ratings. So that was really heartening, it produced a real verve in the unit, a real âwe can do this, we can mount against the insurmountableâ. Itâs still hugely problematic, but we just had to work out new ways to work.